


Undertaker please drive slow

by ana-keen (PNGuin)



Series: Battle-Hymn of the Republic [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (he does not get the hug), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Graphic Depictions of War, Please Don't Hate Me, Takes place during the Clone Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23440078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PNGuin/pseuds/ana-keen
Summary: At the height of the Clone Wars, Darth Sidious knows that his decades-long plans are nearing fruition. There remains but one man, one obstacle, one inconvenience that stands between him and complete control.Obi-Wan Kenobi must die, and then Anakin Skywalker will be his entirely.Darth Sidious, for all his careful planning, makes a grievous miscalculation. One which changes everything.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Battle-Hymn of the Republic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686262
Comments: 29
Kudos: 315





	Undertaker please drive slow

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of connected one-shots revolving around my longtime daydream. Darth Sidious has decided that Obi-Wan has gotta go so that he can get his Sheevie-Jeevie hands on Anakin. But, of course, things go awry, plans get ruined, and maybe the galaxy gets saved. The series will (eventually...) be a fix-it. But this one-shot is very much not fixing anything.
> 
> I haven't consistently watched Clone Wars in several years (and I can't stand the impending doom that overshadows the later seasons...) so my recollection of canon may very well be all kinds of whack and you'll just have to deal with it I guess. As far as timelines go, the Star Wars timeline has never made sense. But I'm tentatively putting this somewhere early in the Outer Rim Sieges.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"

_You cannot race the suns toward the horizon, Ani._

It is something his mom always said when he got into one of his never-ending hyperactive moods, bouncing off the walls and scampering around Mos Espa and talking faster than most pod-racers could go. She used to say that he had been a nonstop storm of movement since he’d been in the womb, always tinkering with the next invention or chasing after the next opportunity. She would run a hand through his sandy hair, perpetually ruffled from the winds of Tatooine, or rest a hand on his shoulder; some physical contact that grounded him, soothing that fierce krayt dragon that resided in his soul.

Nearly fourteen years since Anakin had lived with his mom, nearly four since he had seen her for the last time, and still her voice rings clear in his head. The lilting tones of a song she used to sing early in the morning, heralding the rise of the Sister Suns and the start of the day. The crisp snap of her words when she had to negotiate with customers or when she dared to argue against Watto. The quiet hush of the stories she told while Anakin laid in bed, gazing up at the baleful presence of the Brother Moons in the sky. The rasp in her throat as he held her in his arms, as she-

He ruthlessly pushes the thought away, even as it clings to the insides of his heart like persistent cobwebs. Thick and cloying, gathering dust more and more as the years wear on. It has been too long. It hasn’t been long enough.

The sun is blinding on this planet, scorching like the heat of the Sisters on Tatooine. He can almost imagine the rays burning right through his robes, searing into his skin, settling into his very bones. There is sand here, too. Shifting under his boots, dark with the blood that slowly seeps between the coarse grains. If he thinks about it for too long, the clanking of droids isn’t so very different from the howling of Tuskens.

The battlefield is no place for thoughts of his mother.

Anakin is racing the suns toward the horizon again. He has been racing the suns since he was a boy who didn’t even own his life. Not even the supposed serenity of the Jedi Temple had managed to wrangle his restless soul, to temper the storm that raged in tandem with his heart. He remembers running through the towering halls, ducking past masters and knights and padawans alike, always with the weight of _‘some Chosen One, this foolish, reckless child’_ following behind him like a physical presence. Then the war came, and all of those _foolish, reckless_ behaviors he’d had as a padawan were suddenly _rewarded_ , _encouraged_ even. More and more, they were all forced to race against the suns, always trying to reach that next mission, next battle, next day of survival before those suns touched the horizon.

He knows that if he slows down _now_ , then whatever is behind him will consume him. Whatever is _inside_ him will consume him. That furious fire of the Sister Suns, that roar of the krayt dragon, that uncontrollable storm that howls unforgivingly. What is left of _Anakin Skywalker_ would not survive the suns and the krayt and the storm. So he doesn’t think of his mother in his arms, her life dripping out into the sand, and he doesn’t think of the explosion that had knocked him off of his feet from halfway across the battlefield. He doesn’t think of the Sand People still alive on Tatooine, or the scattered pieces of droids littering the sandy coast. He doesn’t think of his mom, surviving just long enough for them to reach the Lars homestead, just long enough for him to hold her one last time. He does not think about Obi-Wan, resolutely leading a company from the 212th into the fray, the ring of alarm in the Force seconds before a blast had rocked the very ground they stood on. And, above all else, he does not think of that gaping chasm of _nothing_ where his bond with Obi-Wan is supposed to lay, quiet but always always _always_ there; he does not think of _Obi-Wan_.

He stumbles. Nearly falls to his knees, but catches himself on unsteady feet. He doesn’t need to look to know what has tripped him, but Anakin finds himself glancing down anyway. Slowly, as if he’s moving through thick, viscous oil. Sooty, once-white plastoid. Maybe an arm. Maybe a leg. It’s hard to tell anymore. All body parts look the same after long enough. There, at some cracked corner of the material, a flash of gold.

There are no survivors. Anakin does not need to keep wandering what remains of the battlefield to know that. He can feel it, deep in the marrow of his bones. The Force rings hollow, the doleful tolling of the funerary bells that no man in this war would receive. It reverberates along each of his nerves, echoing the reluctant beat of his own heart. Painful, aching emptiness flushes through his body with the sluggish pump of his own blood.

Still, he stumbles further along. His Force awareness is blown out, washing over the coast like the waves that lap at the sand beneath his feet, constantly seeking something to catch himself on before he is dragged out to open water. Surely, somewhere, there must be an answer to the pulse he sends out in the Force. Surely, somewhere, along that bond that is always pulled taut like a string to be plucked, there will be an answering _tug_ , leading him where he is needed.

There is nothing.

Inanely, Anakin thinks back to when he was nine years old, freshly freed from slavery, freshly separated from his mother, freshly adopted into the Jedi Temple. And he remembers sitting cross-legged beside a younger and clean-shaven Obi-Wan, close enough that their knees touched. And he remembers Obi-Wan guiding him to make the training bond that neither of them had ever bothered to dissolve. And he remembers that connection that had formed between them, an intricate weaving of thoughts and feelings and _knowing_ that had created a quilt within the Force, warm and steady and _there_. And he remembers Obi-Wan looking down at him, with those patient eyes and wry grin, and telling him _‘if ever you need my attention, just give the bond a little tug.’_

Anakin keeps tugging. There is no answer. Not this time. The threads that have kept them connected for nearly fourteen years are no longer taut. They hang limp, frayed, _snapped_ in Anakin’s mind. Where there had always been _Obi-Wan_ , warm and steady and present, there is now a silent and consuming _nothingness_.

He stumbles forward. Onward. Always onward. Toward the horizon, racing the suns there. Somewhere, behind him, he can sense the pickers shuffling through the remnants of their brothers. It’s a horrid job, one that Anakin knows no clone wants to take, but he has rarely ever heard anyone complain over it. He wants to turn back to face them, tell them that there are no brothers left here, maybe save them the misery of having to find that out for themselves. But he can’t. He can’t turn around because he has to keep going forward. And what if he’s wrong? Surely he’s wrong. Because _Obi-Wan_ has to be here somewhere. And if Obi-Wan survived, couldn’t a few clones have as well?

Their numbers dwindle the longer the futile search goes. There are no brothers to save, and the pickers are consummate soldiers. One by one, they fall back on the unforgiving training they’d been raised in and they declare the carnage a lost cause. Anakin feels them leave, even without turning to look, and he almost wants to be angry at them. Almost wants to yell _‘how dare you, how dare you abandon your brothers now.’_ But Anakin knows that what his heart really means is _‘how dare he, how dare he abandon his brother now.’_

But he isn’t angry. He isn’t sad. He isn’t hurt. Anakin just feels _empty_. Like that gapping abyss now settled in his head, that jagged nothingness that bleeds about him like an open wound.

Some faint part of himself whispers that he should turn back. Return to their temporary camp. Return to his men who are still alive, who still need their general. Return to what remains of the 212th, who now need _a_ general. Force help him, but Anakin cannot be a general. He does not know if he can be _anything_ , not when he is racing the suns to the horizon and there is an emptiness in his heart and nothing but the bodies of dead men around him.

Rex is there. Rex is with the men. Rex will take care of them, will be the captain they need him to be. He always is, even when Anakin is not the general they need. And- and Cody is there, too. Cody is strong enough to keep the 212th together. They’ll be fine, all of them. Rex and Cody are the best and they will do what needs to be done. And Anakin-

And Anakin will find Obi-Wan. Because he is here, somewhere on this trampled and ruined shoreline, where a thousand dead men lie and a thousand and one destroyed droids lie. Anakin will find Obi-Wan — _of course_ he will — because Anakin _always_ finds Obi-Wan. He will find Obi-Wan and they’ll share matching grins that are actually hiding sobs because they alone will be standing in a field of a thousand dead men all wearing the same face. Always, the lone survivors of such devastation.

His feet shuffle, achingly, to a stop. And he _knows_. Even without looking. Anakin _knows_ what lays beside his feet. The Force tells him, those whispers of knowing that haunt his every living second like the ghosts of all he has failed to be. _Chosen One_ , it murmurs, _you know what is here_.

 _Nothing_.

He looks down. Melted, shattered plastoid. Melted, shattered body parts. The same brutal carnage that he has seen almost every day for three long years, so gut-wrenching and devastating that his body simply stopped responding to it mere weeks into the war, a self-preservation tactic that only managed to preserve the bare minimum of his rations. There, the rounded edge of what could be a shoulder pauldron. And, standing out in a crisp white that seems to taunt the grime of war, the familiar winged outline that Anakin could trace in his sleep.

His knees hit the sand. The impact is enough that Anakin fears causing an earthquake. And yet he feels nothing of it. The knees that sink into the shore’s sand are not his. The hands that clutch desperately at scattered, charred remains are not his. The wretched keening that scrapes up from a raw throat is not his. It cannot be his. Because this cannot be Obi-Wan.

A laugh bubbles in his throat, high-pitched and reedy like the whip-snap of the wind. It heaves itself out of his very soul, dragging with it the tremors of agony that reside deep in his gut. This is not Obi-Wan. _It_ _cannot be Obi-Wan._ Surely, certainly, absolutely, this is not Obi-Wan. It is another Jabiim. Another Rako Hardeen. Obi-Wan is pretending, off doing something vital to the war effort. And he will come back to Anakin — always, always, _always_ back to Anakin — with a tired look in his eyes and an apologetic smile on his lips. And Anakin will be angry with him. Furious, even. But he will forgive Obi-Wan — always, always, _always_ forgive Obi-Wan — and they’ll settle back at each other’s sides as if they had never left.

But the Force does not lie. And it does not pity. Still, mercilessly, it tugs at him. That pull deep in his gut, that incessant need to race the very suns to the horizon. _Up_ , it urges him, _look up_. And he is but a tool, but a mere weapon, for the Force’s will. He looks up. And there, laying resolutely beside its owner. Chrome hilt, glinting in the sunlight, marred by the scuffs and cracks of war. Within, the fierce power of a kyber crystal that sings for a master no longer there to hear it.

Anakin does not want to pick it up. But the Force _tugs_ , and Anakin is as helpless as a raft caught in a stormy sea, yanked about by the whims of fate. He takes it up in his flesh hand. The metal is warm to the touch, the crystal within it even warmer in its presence. Quiet and steady and _there_. It recognizes him, welcomes him nearly as strongly as his own does. His fingers wrap around it, tight enough that he can feel the familiar hilt digging against the callouses of his palm. Tight enough that it hurts. And tighter still.

They say that a kyber crystal changes just as surely as its owner does. And they say that the crystal of a dead Jedi is never the same. Still functional, but never again will it _belong_. The remnants of a soul departed, the final pieces cast adrift in the galaxy while the rest returns to the Force. Forever, a silent monument for what was lost. Perhaps, even, the Force’s way of mourning its own.

Anakin remembers, then, that cherished milestone of building his first lightsaber. Ten years old, still so eager for the galaxy, still so alone in the world. A newly acquired kyber crystal that sang just for him, the scattered parts that would assemble into something useful. And, when he had finished, that proud grin that had always been reserved just for him. _‘This lightsaber is your life, Anakin,’_ Obi-Wan had said, _‘do not be careless with it.’_

Anakin sits on the shoreline of some planet he no longer remembers the name of, some forgotten place that is one of too many, among the scattered remains of men and droids, kneeling beside the only grave his master will ever receive, and he wonders who is the careless one: the Jedi or the Force.

He thinks of his mother’s body in his arms, so heavy and limp and cold. The sunken hollows of her face, the pallor of her skin, the rasp of her voice as she told him those precious words one last time. Anakin looks around, at the fragments of body parts strewn about him, at the shoulder pauldron bearing that condemning emblem, at what might have once been an arm and a hand still connected to it. He reaches out with the hand not clutching the lightsaber, and he lays his fingers out on that charred, broken piece that could have been a glove at some lost point.

When had he last embraced Obi-Wan? The question haunts him. That sickening twist in his gut. A ghost from all the things that would now never be. Had it been last week? Last month? Last _year?_ Anakin used to tackle Obi-Wan in a hug whenever he returned from missions, used to insist on sitting close enough that their shoulders pressed together, used to offer touch and comfort and presence as easily as breathing. When had that stopped? When had it become another casualty of war?

He would not get that chance again.

Anakin looks up to see the sun touching the edge of the horizon, big and red and gloating far above him. And he watches, numb and cold and so very alone, as it sinks further and further down. Here, on this forgotten planet and its bloody shore, surrounded by a thousand dead men, clutching the hand of the one person Anakin thought he could never lose, the war does not stop.

‘ _You cannot race the suns toward the horizon, Ani_ ,’ his mother used to say. But Anakin knows the truth behind such a saying. Remembers it from the blistering heat and furious sands of Tatooine, the howl of Tusken Raiders loud in his ears, his mother’s body heavy in his arms, her grave lit by the lingering light of the setting Sisters.

You can race the suns to the horizon all you want. But you are always destined to lose.

**Author's Note:**

> And so it begins.
> 
> Thank you all very much for reading. Please drop me a kudos or comment. They are my only sustenance for these long weeks of quarantine.
> 
> Love you all and stay safe,  
> ~ana-keen


End file.
